Evaluating airlines with slack-based measures and meta-frontiers

This study develops a new performance evaluation model, called the meta dynamic network slack-based measure (MDN-SBM). This model incorporates the concept of meta-frontiers to facilitate comparisons of performance of decision making units, while at the same time it generalizes the slack-based measure (SBM), network SBM, and dynamic SBM. This MDN-SBM model is capable of dealing with two important special features of the transportation industry: unfavorable accidents and non-storable goods, i.e. available seat-kilometers that are wasting assets that lose value completely if unsold before departure. Hence, this generalized model contains higher differentiable capability than all its SBM-related submodels in the literature. To demonstrate, 35 international airlines with two divisions (production and consumption) in three terms (one-year time periods from 2007 to 2009) have been analyzed using meta-performance efficiency measures (ME) for all decision making units and have also been compared by geographical area (Asia-Pacific, N. America/Europe). The numerical example and comparison validate the proposed MDN-SBM model and suggest the airlines should put more focus on input resources reduction for productivity improvement.